Tea in Spontaneous Order - Dynamic Equilibrium Color

teamLab, 2021, Interactive Installation, Endless, Sound: Hideaki Takahashi

Tea in Spontaneous Order - Dynamic Equilibrium Color

teamLab, 2021, Interactive Installation, Endless, Sound: Hideaki Takahashi

When a cup of tea is poured, it begins to glow with its own unique rhythm and produces a tone. A spontaneous order phenomenon occurs between the teas close by as they influence each other, gradually syncing the rhythms of light and color of the teas.

When you lift the tea to drink it, it shines brightly and the suns of the artwork Massless Suns and Dark Spheres resonate one after the other in response. As you finish the tea, the artwork enters your body and stops influencing its surroundings.


The light color of the tea is Dynamic Equilibrium Color, a new color concept by teamLab. When a person sees the tea in the cup from a distance, taking in its entirety, the color of the light does not appear to change; but when they look closely, observing the miniscule, the color of the light is actually continuously changing, and creating a new sense of time.


A spontaneous order phenomenon occurs when different rhythms influence each other and become aligned. Examples include when the pendulums of two clocks gradually begin to swing together, when many fireflies gather in one tree and all start flashing at the same time, creating a larger light phenomenon, or when the cells that make up the heart synchronize and tremble simultaneously to create the beating of the heart. The phenomenon of self-organization is the creation of a large structure with order resulting from the autonomous behavior of each individual, even though each individual does not have the ability to observe the whole. This can also be called a self-organization phenomenon.


It is believed that entropy (a measurement of the lack of order in a system) in the universe will steadily increase (the law of increasing entropy) and that entities with form eventually collapse. However, the reason why the universe, life, nature, and society are able to exist in spite of this may be because order is born by itself through the common phenomenon of self-organization in the midst of disorder. In other words, the universe and our own existence are a continuous order created by the same phenomenon.